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Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 3. Facets of the Negro Problem - 4. The “Rank Order of Discriminations”
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62 An American Dilemma
been the basis for all interracial policy and also for most of the practical
work actually carried out by Negro betterment organizations. Followed to
its logical end, it should fundamentally change the race situation in
America.
It has thus always been a primary requirement upon every Negro leader
—who aspires to get any hearing at all from the white majority group, and
who does not want to appear dangerously radical to the Negro group and
at the same time hurt the ^^race pride” it has built up as a defense—that
he shall explicitly condone the anti-amalgamation maxim, which is the
keystone in the white man’s structure of race prejudice, and forbear to
express any desire on the part of the Negro people to aspire to inter-
marriage with the whites. The request for intermarriage is easy for the
Negro leader to give up. Intermarriage cannot possibly be a practical object
of Negro public policy. Independent of the Negroes’ wishes, the opportun-
ity for intermarriage is not favorable as long as the great majority of the
white population dislikes the very idea. As a defense reaction a strong
attitude against intermarriage has developed in the Negro people itself.^®
And the Negro people have no interest in defending the exploitative illicit
relations between white men and Negro women. This race mingling is,
on the contrary, commonly felt among Negroes to be disgraceful. And it
often arouses the jealousy of Negro men.
The required soothing gesture toward the anti-amalgamation doctrine
is, therefore, readily delivered. It is iterated at every convenient oppor-
tunity and belongs to the established routine of Negro leadership. For
example, Robert R. Moton writes:
As for amalgamation, very few expect it; still fewer want it; no one advocates it;
and only a constantly diminishing minority practise it, and that surreptitiously. It is
generally accepted on both sides of the colour line that it is best for the two races
to remain ethnological}/ distinct.^^
There seems thus to be unanimity among Negro leaders on the point
deemed crucial by white Americans. If we attend carefully, we shall, how-
ever, detect some important differences in formulation. The Negro spokes-
man will never, to begin with, accept the common white premise of racial
inferiority of the Negro stock. To quote Moton again:
. . . even in the matter of the mingling of racial strains, however undesirable it
might seem to be from a social point of view, he [the Negro] would never admit
that his blood carries any taint of physiological, mental, or spiritual inferiority.^*^
A doctrine of equal natural endowments—a doctrine contrary to the white
man’s assumption ot Negro inferiority, wYiicVi is at the basis of the anti-
amalgamation theory—^has been consistently upheld. It a Negro leader
publicly even hinted at the possibility of inherent racial inferiority, he
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